Battle of the Somme

The Battle of the Somme was a major Allied offensive on the Western Front of World War I which occurred from 1 July to 18 November 1916 along the Somme River in France. The offensive - the largest battle fought on the Western Front - became remembered as one of the bloodiest battles in human history. Despite this great sacrifice, the Allies failed to achieve their objectives and made only limited territorial gains.

Background
As the point where French and British sectors of the Western Front met, the Somme was considered a good place to launch an Anglo-French offensive. A major offensive at the Somme was first proposed in December 1915. Plans were altered after the Germans attacked the French at Verdun in February 1916. Instead of an Anglo-French operation, it became a British offensive with French spport. General Sir Douglas Haig wanted to delay the offensive until August, but the French insisted it go ahead sooner, to relieve the pressure on Verdun.

Start of the offensive
The German defenses on the strethc of front chosen for the Allied Somme Offensive were among the strongest on the whole Western Front. The German front line consisted of a complex of trenches and fortrified strongpoints with deep dugouts to shelter troops from artillery fire. A good distance behind this, there was a second defensive line, and in places a third behind that. The British plan to overcome these formidable defenses relied upon a prolonged and heavy preliminary bombardment.

The plan and its execution
While the British engineers dug under the German lines to lay mines, and cut their barbed wire, the artillery was expected to demolish the German trenches and stun or kill the defenders. It would be the job of the infantry to move across from the British trenches and occupy the devastated defenses.

British commander-in-chief General Sir Douglas Haig then envisioned cavalry breaking through into open country, over the German line. General Sir Henry Rawlinson, commanding the British 4th Army, which had the largest role in the offensive, thought in terms of a more gradual advance that would chew its way through the German defenses in a series of "bites."

Haig and Rawlinson were both too optimistic. The British artillery was not adequate to the task it was set. Although it had more than 1,000 guns, these were spread too thinly across a broad front. What's more, in the rush to manufacture shells, quality had been neglected, and about a third of the 1.5 million shells fired failed to explode. German soldiers sat in their bunkers, profoundly shaken but safe, through eight days of preliminary bombardment. The wire in front of their trenches remained mostly uncut.

Over the top
At 7:30 AM on 1 July, the British infantry began their assault. Many were battaions of Kitchener's New Armies entering battle for the first time. Rawlinson had issued the order that infantry were to advance at walking pace in evenly spaced lines. Many experienced officers ignored this, filtering men forward into no man's land in preparation for a dash to the enemy wire orr exploiting cover to move soldiers forward in small groups. Thousands of soldiers, however, did emerge from their trenches to form up in lines and walk steadily forward behind their officers. Ahead of them the British artillery attempted to provide a creeping barrage - landing shells just ahead of the advancing infantry - but coordination was clumsy and the barrage lifted too soon. Once the shells had stopped falling, the Germans emerged from their dugouts and manned the machine guns.

The slaughtered
Blocked by intact wire, bombarded by German artillery, and cut down by machine guns, the British infantry were massacred at many points along the line. Out of 720 Accrington Pals, a battalion of the East Lancashire Regiment sent to attack a strongpoint at Serre, 584 were killed, wounded, or missing by 8:00 AM. Of the 780 men of the Newfoundland Regiment attacking Beaumont Hamel, only 68 survived unscathed. The Grimsby Chums, a battalion of the Lincolnshire Regiment, advanced in the La Boisselle sector where a huge mine created the Lochnagar crater. Most of the Chums advanced no farther than the crater, where they were trapped under heavy fire. Their casualties numbered 502 officers and men out of a total of 600.

Some parts of the offensive were a relative success. To the south of the British, the French progressed to take most of their objectives, supported by a greater density of artillery. Alongside the French, the troops at the southern end of the British sector captured the village of Mametz, occupying Fricourt the following day. Farther north, the 36th (Ulster) Division broke through the German front line and penetrated the strongpoint of the Schwaben Redoubt but were halted in front of Thiepval and forced to pull back. Over the next days a few more objectives were achieved - La Boiselle was taken on 7 July, and Mametz Wood on 12 July. In other places, there were minimal gains, or none.

Attrition on the Somme
After the initial offensive, the fighting at the Somme became a series of local attacks and counterattacks over several months, aimed at capturing or recovering places - hills, woods, small towns - held as strongpoints or offering a perceived tactical advantage. Losses were consistently heavy on both sides.

The Allies came out marginally better in the fighting. Aided by command of the air, which enabled aircraft to pinpoint targets, the British artillery became far more effective. Cooperation between the infantry and the gunners enabled soldiers to advance close behind a creeping barrage that suppressed German defenses. Attacking British troops also became better at using light machine guns, grenades, and mortars. In spite of these improvements, however, gains were small and hard-won in the face of tenacious German resistance.

At first, British generals still seriously contemplated a breakthrough. On 14 July, the Fourth Army commander, General Sir Henry Rawlinson, planned an offensive to take the German second-line defenses on Longueval Ridge and push cavalry through the opening. Troops prepared for a night attack, with those involved in the initial assault taking up position in no man's land close to the German line. After a brief but intense artillery bombardment, the troops rushed forward at dawn to capture the pulverized trenches. Initial success was followed by disappointment. Cavalry moved forward too slowly to exploit the opening and key objectives were not taken, including Delville Wood, which only fell to South African troops after a two-week struggle.

German counterattacks
The Germans poured large numbers of troops and guns into the Somme to resist the Allied pressure. Their orders were to hold positions to the last man and regain lost ground at whatever cost. The savage fighting this entailed was exhibited at the village of Pozieres on the Albert-Bapaume road. Australian troops broke into the fortified village on 23 July, but fighting continued for two weeks as the Germans first refused to give up the part of the position they still held and then mounted fierce counterattacks. The Australians ended up in possession of Pozieres, but at the cost of 23,000 casualties - similar to their losses in the entire Gallipoli campaign.

The first use of tanks
On 15 September, a new element entered the battle when the British deployed 32 Mark I tanks for an attack at Flers-Courcelette. The commander-in-chief, Sir Douglas Haig, chose to employ the tanks despite their crews being inadequately prepared and too few vehicles being available for decisive effect. The appearance of these armored monsters certainly had a psychological effect on German soldiers, but most of the tanks quickly broke down, became stuck in shell holes, or were taken out by enemy artillery. A few tanks led infantry in the capture of the village of Flers, however, and Haig was impressed.

As summer moved into autumn, rain reduced the battle zone to mud. The British continued to creep forward, taking German positions that had been first-day objectives - from Thiepval, occupied on 26 September, to Beaumont Hamel, seized on 13 November. The Battle of the Somme ended on 18 November. By then, snow was falling and even Haig could see that no purpose could be served by continuing. Allied troops had gained at most 7.5 miles.

Aftermath
The Battle of the Somme caused an estimated 420,000 British, 200,000 French, and 500,000 German casualties. These losses led to a reconsideration of strategy on both sides of the conflict. Taking over supreme command in September 1916, Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg and General Erich Ludendorff decided to construct a new fortified line that was shorter and easier to defend. In February-March 1917, the Germans withdrew from the Somme to the Hindenburg Line. In spite of criticism of Haig's strategy, the British attacked again at Arras in April 1917. Haig also asked for mass production of tanks. These had a big impact at Cambrai in November 1917. After the war, the remains of the men who fell at teh Somme were reburied in dedicated war cemeteries, such as the one at Pozieres, where so many Australian soldiers died.